Minor Super-Villainy
by footshooter
Summary: I love the idea, and have written before, of what would happen if some of Gotham's big-bad-guys decided just to mess with Batman for a while. It's currently one-chapter, with Scarecrow-focus and other characters background, but depending on how I feel I might end up multi-chap'ing with different villains. Basic silly humour, obvious timeline messing with, spoilers, swearing.


Throughout his time as Batman, Bruce Wayne had had one constant, one omnipotent being who was always there, somewhere in the background, lurking, waiting to strike or waiting to capitalise on someone else's scheme…

In the beginning, Scarecrow was the be-all-and-end-all. It was his plan which caused Gotham to be engulphed by fear, his plan which allowed Ras-al-Ghul to break the monorail and cause billions of damage. His compound caused all of the damage and destruction, the inmates escape, the lasting psyche issues. He was carted to Arkham, but got away pretty soon afterwards and vanished into the underground somewhere, his drugs appearing on the surface, causing an awful amount of issues with the dependents who, usually, kept away from anything not resembling petty crime and some major riot based issues with the city's gangs.

Nonetheless, Batman managed to apprehend him a second time during a deal and send him back to the clutches of the GCPD once again. Only for him to be sent back to Arkham to escape. Bruce could understand that he had to _go_ to Arkham, being criminally insane and all, but he didn't understand why they couldn't put him somewhere he couldn't just walk out. He _knew_ the place. He used to _run_ the place. Surely it wouldn't be too much of an issue to just _change the damned codes_.

He jumped in on Bane's schemes too, playing some weird, douchey judge. It fit, Bruce supposed, with the weird power-trip he would ultimately get from the whole deal. But he vanished once they pulled round, and Bruce headed back into town, dragging his heels and hoping Batman would never have to be seen again.

It was quiet for a few months, nice even, with Selina by his side. But she quickly got bored and ran off, leaving him broken hearted and hollow, and he decided to don the cowl just to see what was going on downtown.

Unfortunately for him, he ran into Scarecrow, who had adapted his costume to include weird syringe fingers and a bigger gas mask. He scowled, wondering why no one had put him away yet when he was wandering so blatantly down the street.

"Scarecrow," he growled, and Scarecrow nearly dropped a load as he jumped and squealed rather girlishly. Unfortunately, in the time it took for him to stop himself from cracking up, he heard a hiss and suddenly terrors were screaming their way towards him. He stood, stoically, as he pressed the suits panic button and waited for Alfred to pick him up, heart hammering in his ears. Scarecrow got away, manic laughter echoing around the streets as he went.

Batman's reappearance managed to cause the rest of the scum to come crawling out of the woodwork, and he was busier than ever what with the Riddler and Penguin and Killer Croc attacking people left, right and centre. Alfred was concerned, especially with Bruce adopting an orphaned kid from a circus who insisted on trailing along. Bruce was concerned because where ever he went, and whatever fight he was in, he ended up seeing the Scarecrow lurking somewhere in the background like a weird, nightmarish narrator to his life.

Bruce started to ignore him as he often didn't play any bigger role in the displays than just _lurking_ but he would occasionally run by leaving Toxin in his wake, or just stab some of the existing victims with the syringes on his hands, cackling wildly. One time, he had a horse and a scythe. That time he'd released some cloud into the air and zombies were appearing from everywhere. Bruce promised himself he'd fit a gas mask to the cowl.

...

One day, when he was searching for a psychiatrist named Harleen Quinzel who'd been unfortunate enough to land the Joker and fall into some kind of weird infatuation, he heard voices down an alley. One of those voices he recognised as Jonathan Crane's psychiatrist voice.

"C'mon, Harley," he said. "The Joker wouldn't want this. He wouldn't want you wandering around like a lost kitten squeaking at the sky. He'd want you to get to the zoo, bust out the hyenas and cause hell 'til he got back."

A deep sniff could be heard, then a wobbly female voice with a distinct New York accent.

"I know, Johnny, but I just miss him so."  
"He'll get out, we always do."  
"D'ya think I should help him?"  
"Probably not. He'll have his own plans. And you remember the broken fingers?"

Batman walked around the corner just in time to see her nod, make-up smudged under the streetlights with tear trails down her cheeks.

"Yeah, we don't want that happening again."  
"But my puddin'-"  
"I know, I know. You love him."

Jonathan sounded, if anything, bored.

"But you've just gotta keep going, right? You'll manage, won't you?"

She nodded.

"You're okay now?"

She nodded again, and launched at him, pulling him into a hug.

"Thanks, Johnny! I really needed that!"  
"Yeah well, I didn't need the hug," Crane said, rubbing at his wrists. "And how many times have I asked you _not_ to call me Johnny?"

He sprayed her in the face with a canister hidden up his sleeve, and her eyes widened in shock before it dissolved into fear, stepping back until she was up against a wall and yelling, loudly.

Jonathan straightened his jacket under the intricate design running over the top of his suit, and rolled his eyes.

"Insolent wench," he muttered, heading back towards Batman. "You can have that one for free."  
"What?" Batman said, as he watched him walk away.  
"Free, y'know? Like, for nothing. I get enough pleasure from thinking you'll have to get her to Arkham while she's squealing like that."

Bruce pulled a face under the cowl, and Scarecrow was gone into the mist of a Gotham night so he decided just to pick Harley up and take her away. At least she'd be with her 'puddin'' back there…

...

It would be okay if it was a one-off, accepting help from Crane like that, but when Ivy grew a garden-swamp in the middle of the main road which was surrounded by man-eating plants of monstrous proportions, Batman was stood trying to work out how to get inside without being digested when he noticed Scarecrow in the middle, kicking up the weeds. Bruce then noticed Ivy stamping over, barefeet covered by grass almost lovingly as the vines surrounding her body ruffled in seeming annoyance.

"Crane, what the hell are you doing?"

Crane looked up, pulling a face below his mask.

"Nothing."  
"You're kicking up my babies."  
"Yeah, well, you know."  
"No I do not know. Stop that right now."  
"I kinda need it for a… thing."  
"You are _not_ experimenting on my children. Who the hell do you think you are? You have _no_ right to come up here and start pulling things out of the ground. You're _killing_ them!"

When Ivy was screeching, Crane held up his hands, and seemed to, accidently, catch one of her flailing limbs. She stopped dead as something on his jacket made a hissing sound.

"What the hell have you just done?"  
"Technically, nothing."  
"Crane!"

She started to stare over his shoulder, wide-eyed and panting, and then her legs gave way. She tried to scrabble at his trouser leg, but he pulled it away, uprooting another plant as he did. He pocketed samples from each of them as she stared on, horrified and terrified all at once.

Batman swooped in behind them, and Scarecrow heard him land on the leaves. He turned, shrugged, and ran away, picking samples as he went. Batman tried to follow him, but Ivy's vines were wrapping themselves around his legs, and so he took her back to Arkham to join her friend.

...

Killer Croc was pounding his back against a wall the next time Crane appeared, and Batman wasn't hoping he'd help. Nope. Not in the slightest.

Crane coughed, and Croc spun round.

"The hell, Crane?"  
"Hey. Bad time?"  
"Just a bit. What d'ya want?"  
"Oh, nothing. You can finish. Go ahead."

Bruce stared at him in a way that would yell _dude what the hell_ if he wasn't Batman. He tried to convey that he'd pay him if he helped. That he'd give him whatever the hell he wanted. But Crane was just stood, staring at his cuticles with disinterest. Croc tried to get back into it, but growled.

"Nah, you gonna have to go ahead now, Crane. Why you here?"

"It's just about those drugs I sold you."  
"The ones to enhance my team, yeah, so what?"  
"Have you checked on them recently?"  
"Naw, not since… What the hell did I buy?"  
"Well, I just think I might have made a slight miscalculation, that's all."

Croc dropped Batman, who struggled for breath on the floor, to advance on Crane.

"What kinda miscalculation?"

His voice was low, threatening. Crane didn't even flinch.

"Just might have been something else."  
"You gave my crew some of your fear shit by accident?"  
"Well that's just rude. That's my lifes work!"  
"You ain't gonna have a life when I catch up to ya!"

Jonathan held up a hand, which Croc tried to bat out of the way, giving Crane the chance to operate the switch and spray Croc in the face. He scuttled backwards in horror, giving Batman the chance to knock him out.

He turned to Crane, having quite enough of this.

"What is this?" He growled. "Are you helping me?"

Scarecrow simply smiled, and sprayed him in the face too.

Luckily, by this point, Nightwing had rounded up the rest of Croc's quivering crew with Robin, and they'd come back to find him. They managed to drag him and Croc outside to wait for the cops, depositing Batman in the car, before making a swift exit.

...

Batman spent the next day in bed, joining Alfred, Robin and Nightwing around the large dining room table the next morning to frown and sulk.

"I just don't understand it," he mumbled, head in his hands. "Is he trying to drive me crazy? Who's side is he on? I need to know!"

The other men glanced at each other, concerned, before Nightwing patted Batman's hand.

"Hey, it's okay. He probably is just trying to drive you crazy."

Bruce glared at him as if to say _this isn't helping_.

"Maybe he just wants to be the only villain again?" Robin said with a shrug.

But no one took him seriously because who would take a young boy seriously while he was eating CocoPops and playing with a toy car on the table?

...

Mr Freeze had frozen the bridge in rush-hour. Batman showed up and, wondrously, Scarecrow wasn't waiting for him like the worst guardian angel you could ever have. It was strange, but he took out Mr Freeze and managed to get them all home without one of them freaking out. All in all, it was a good day.

Clayface melted a building one night, turning the people inside into fleshless muck. Batman had to swing from the ceiling to take him down, and almost could have done with Crane's help, but he didn't show. In the end, he managed to get Clayface into a protective box and between him and Nightwing they swung him out into the street and headed home for a glass of whisky.

The Mad Hatter set up a particularly complex plan to gain Batman's cowl which almost ended in disaster when Robin and Nightwing succumbed and he was suspended upside-down from a ceiling. Luckily, due to smarts, he managed to swing his way out of it during a monologue and landed directly on top of the creepy bastard, switching off the mid control machine in his hat and restoring Gotham back to normal. Scarecrow still hadn't showed, and he was starting to think something was wrong…

Batman headed out one night when most of the villains were in Arkham to interrogate some of the lesser criminals in the city. He wasn't _worried_ about Scarecrow, per-say, just concerned about what he _could_ be doing. It had been a while since Bruce had even seen him.

He pinned a criminal down, yelled "Where is Scarecrow?" into his face until he was sure they were telling the truth when they said they didn't know, and then moved onto the next one. By dawn he was sure that half the city knew he was looking for him.

He ran into Rag-Doll that night, almost ended up hypnotised in a skip as he'd crept up on him. Luckily, his last punch hit home, and he swore to himself as he clutched his knuckle and dragged the creep from the skip to plonk him on the floor to await Commissioner Gordon.

"Could have done with you then, Crane," he growled. But no one responded.

Typical.

...

Maxie Zeus, one of the latest normal people to lose his mind, had caught Robin and Nightwing and had forced them into a brazen bull. He was trying to ignite the floor using his electricity, but luckily for Batman, the sparks did little more but electrify the water surrounding Maxie, sending his henchmen twitching to the floor and giving Batman the edge to knock him out.

He sent him back to Arkham in a patrol car, looking so intently around for the figure of Dr Jonathan Crane that he almost forgot to retrieve Nightwing and Robin from the bull.

Almost.

...

Batman caught up to Victor Zsasz in an old-abandoned warehouse filled with old chemical pits that Bruce had a faint deja-vu about. The man didn't have any bleeding wounds, which he hoped to take to mean that he hadn't managed to yet kill Robin or Nightwing. He was slashing at Batman furiously, attempting to get through the plates and to the skin. A couple of his blows did hit, but Batman's ruthless blows to the face were hitting harder.

So to say, he didn't pay much attention to Zsasz frowning at something over his shoulder, assuming his blows had somehow addled his mind.

But then a familiar hand joined his, and a syringe hit deep, realisation contorting Zsasz's face before the Toxin even had time to hit home. And then he started screaming.

"Where have you been?" Batman growled at Scarecrow, who shrugged. "Are we friendly now?"

Crane shrugged.

"Aren't you going to help your friends?"  
"Where are they?"

Crane shrugged again.

"Last time I saw them, they were descending into shark pits."

Batman swore once again, belting off towards where the empty chemical drums had been abandoned. Surely enough, Nightwing and Robin were there, almost at the sharks reach, and started yelling and waving their hands at him as if he couldn't see them when, if anything, he was drawn to them.

Bruce ran over to the consoles and frantically started punching things in. Scarecrow was stood off to one side, smirking at the obviously fearful people hanging upside down.

"Can't you help?!" Batman yelled at him.

Crane looked at him as if he'd forgotten he was there.

"Oh, yes. Sorry."

He pressed something, and half of the drums off to the side of the room exploded, sizzling as they hit the air with released pressure.

"There you go," Crane said, vanishing into the mist as the hallucinations started to hit.

Batman struggled through, ignoring the things flying towards him and wishing for the gas mask he'd thought about but never got to put into practice. He heard a cover come over the pits just in time, unable to see them, and Nightwing and Robin dropped to the surface, still panicking enough to roll off and hit the floor.

"CRANE!" Batman yelled as he, too, succumbed to the hallucinations.

...

Batman returned home one night after chasing Catwoman endlessly around the rooftops because she'd stolen an old ladies handbag. Bruce couldn't help but sigh as he pulled off the cowl and ruffled his hair thinking of the life she'd chosen over the life she could have had.

He couldn't be that bad, could he?

He walked into the dining room where a figure was sat at the table. He'd forgotten the reason he was out alone was that Nightwing had taken Robin to the cinema, and was halfway through asking whether Alfred had left anything for dinner when he realised Dr Crane was the man at the table.

He froze.

"What are you doing here?" he asked in a growl, and remembered he was Bruce Wayne here when Crane smiled.  
"Don't worry, Mr Wayne, I know who you are."  
"Why are you here?"  
"Can't friends pay each other a visit? You seemed _so_ desperate to be friends earlier."  
"I just want to know where we stand. You keep showing up and helping, but then you dose me too, and I don't know whether to trust you or not."

Crane pursed his lips, appearing deep in thought, then he stood up and made his way over to Bruce.

"What does your heart say, Bruce?" he asked, voice soft, and Bruce frowned.  
"Well-"

Jonathan let a canister drop from his sleeve and sprayed him in the face. He was laughing to begin with, but started to cackle wildly when Bruce swore and yelled abuse at him.

Bruce did have the last laugh this time though, and managed to level a punch right in the bastards face before he managed to scoot out of the way.

He hoped, as the hallucinations he was becoming resignedly used to started to crawl out from the walls, that he'd knocked out some of the fuckers teeth.

* * *

 **a/n: _fixed the dodgy formatting. Sorry if you tried to read that, that would have been awful. In my defence, it_ is late _and I'm very tired. :)_**


End file.
